Swimming with Hypermobility

Having hypermobility means having muscles that are too flexible as opposed to too tight, which means exercise choice is really important. As much as I try to kid myself that walking up the escalators at tube stations is a substitute for the gym, in reality exercise needs to happen regularly. The best exercises for hypermobility sufferers are those that strengthen the muscles. This doesn’t mean you need to start inhaling spinach and channelling Pop-Eye, it just means try to avoid increasing flexibility.

People who are referred to physio will receive a tension band in a shocking shade of yellow or red, which for some reason always smell absolutely vile. They should really make them smell divine or come up with a way of making money fall out of them to increase usage, but until then, keep them away from your nose. While the band exercises helped my shoulder a bit, no amount of stretching or wall leaning or thrusting (horrible, horrible word) ever helped my hip.

Against the odds, one of my best friends who I also live with suffers with hypermobility too. She took up swimming about 6 months ago and eventually I jumped on board too. Front crawl I can’t do well because it hurts my shoulder a lot, backstroke I can’t do because I’m terrified of hitting the wall or another person (and it hurts), so breaststroke became the one. Starting gently, even if it means only staying in the water for fifteen minutes, is definitely the right way to go about things. After three trips my hip felt like I had actually done it some good. It usually clicks with practically every step I take, but this definitely lessened post-swimming. It’s also nice gentle exercise for my shoulders and they didn’t hurt any more than usual after. My friend has been advised to invest in a float to lean on to work on her legs more, so we are both going to try this next, much to the delight of the Olympic swimmers who insist on getting in the slow lane at our local pool.

The last time we went swimming we swam for 35 minutes straight, which was the most I have done since my problems started. The next time I go I will aim for this, but no longer. Hypermobility really is about patience.  It took some working up to and apart from two daring lengths of terrifying backstroke, it was all breaststroke. Nice and calm and gentle and resulting in eating a dinner that would feed a family of five. Hungry work, swimming.